The garment cleaning and sortation industry processes thousands of garments in a day at a given location, using large conveyors to transport cleaned garments on conventional wire hangers. Frequently, these hangers are moving in close proximity to each other without any mechanical separation means employed. With many hangers being moved along a conveyor, the hangers have a propensity for getting crossed, making separation problematic. This is especially troublesome where large sortation apparatus is used where the garments are individually identified and sorted. If the hangers are crossed, the apparatus must be stopped to uncross and separate the hangers manually, otherwise, two garments may be identified as one or the apparatus may malfunction. It would be desirable to have a means for automatically separating crossed hangers that can be integrated with a sortation apparatus. It would also be desirable for such a detangling means to be usable with conventional hanger support rails or conveyors.